Vid - Team 48 Practice Robot and Trailer

[Travis Hoffman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=537Qi2C57x4

Stock wide frame. Stock wheels. Stock Toughbox transmissions. Trailer with stock wheels. "Real" regolith. 1 CIM per side. 4WD. No additional joystick programming or other "intelligence". Tank-style 2-joystick steering. This is an absolute bare bones bot in action.

Bot weight was base + battery + 85 lbs. of free weights. Definitely a little light. We're putting a 2nd level on the bot tomorrow so we can set an accurate bot weight and more easily test different weight distributions.

We did locate some old '06 bumpers after this vid, which we will install on the back of the practice chassis to provide more realistic and constrained trailer pivoting.

All in all it was fun to drive. I enjoyed throwing the trailer around - start a turn, let go of the sticks, let the trailer spin the bot around and complete the turn, then accelerate. Perhaps not the most efficient turning method but it was fun.

Just from a few minutes of driving, I can see how much we'll have to adjust the joystick and drivetrain code on the actual bot to limit wheel slip.

[s_forbes]

Great test, thanks for posting the video! Let us know how it turns out with more weight on the bot. Also, is your trailer built like the actual competition trailers, or at least close to competition trailer weight?

[T3_1565]

I wish we had that much regolith lol. we only have a few sheets of it... and we are almost at that stage with the bot (your trailer is very nice, probably something that we need to do as well lol).

thanks for the post, its awesome info to see a full bot, and tailer in action.

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

Great test, thanks for posting the video! Let us know how it turns out with more weight on the bot. Also, is your trailer built like the actual competition trailers, or at least close to competition trailer weight?

The Competition Team built the trailer to the "Team Drawing" specs. You make a good point about the trailer weight, though. If needed, we'll add some evenly-distributed weight to the trailer to bring it to the 36 lbs. mentioned in Team Update #3.

[Travis Hoffman]

We posted more videos to YouTube after driving a bit more last night. We secured and distributed the weights better. Turns out we guessed right by adding 85 pounds after weighing the bot. We put some rear bumpers on, and we also weighed the trailer built to the low-cost specs - 42 lbs. This is six pounds over the competition weight of 36 lbs.

Time to build the real thing, which isn't *quite* like this. This bot will help our drivers (and those on our partner NEOFRA teams) get ready even after our '09 bots ship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6PayPcxVhs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsWrboTjW9U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYTSW-1pjs - now with more Creed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmnQHdwbfeM